What did you reuse or repurpose?

[rob62521]

Bankrate sent this article and it talks about reusing items or repurposing them to not only help the environment, but also to save money:

Reusing items is better than recycling

I thought it might be fun if we talked about an item or items we have reused or repurposed -- with the frugal and creative minds out there, this should be a mighty list.

I'll start:
1. I reuse envelopes to make grocery lists and put coupons in for the store.

[LuxLiving]

I recently posted a picture over on my blog of my ironing board - I repurposed the space underneath it. I took the X legs off and replaced them with a bookshelf, thus gaining needed pantry space.

If I recall correctly when we moved here and there was no parking pad of any kind we used the metal legs to act as part of the rebar in our concrete pour.

[ceejay74]

When we switched to frozen concentrate juice recently, we found two plastic pitchers on the "free table" in our condo garage, and we use those--as well as the plastic jugs from our last few nonconcentrate juice purchases--to hold our juice from concentrate.

My GF used old T-shirts and thrift-store sheets to make quilts for us and our friends--and she used the scraps to make a rag rug.

Is this gross? DH uses one of the black plastic folders my birth control pills come in to house his keys so they won't scratch his sunglasses in his pocket.

We made way too much dip for a recent party, so we used the extra to make coleslaw and as sandwich spread.

The bottom of a cute little stockpot got scorched, so we're going to try and use it as a planter for tomato plants.

[cooliemae]

I work in a Rec. Department with a limited budget, so I'm always trying to reuse things.

I have our kitchen save plastic buckets (from cottage cheese and such) and reuse them as chip buckets when I hold Casino Nights (and don't worry no real money is exchanged).

We had a large fan that broke down and I turned it into a Wheel of Fortune wheel.

We use any of our scrap paper from the office as score sheets and scratch paper.

I took some old tennis ball canisters and mounted them to a wall to create softball bat holders.

We try and reuse everything to both save money and save on the trash.

[Caoineag]

Used paper (envelopes, computer printout, etc) gets torn into small pads for our grocery list.

Found broken glass is currently used by DH to do mosaics. He also uses a cardboard box that our teapot came in to hold the shards.

Old towels get turned into rags (rags being used for jobs so messy you can never get them clean again).

Old furniture in good condition is given to friends, old furniture in bad condition tends to get restained and kept (speaking of which, my little coffee table needs to be sanded and painted again, poor thing).

Plastic grocery bags are used for dog poop pickup.

Plastic table cloths are used for protecting the carpet when replanting.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Partly because awhile back I stopped accumulating stuff and started requiring everything brought into the house to be good quality, long lasting and to be used a lot. It has definitely cut down on the throwing things out. Except for mp3 players, I have a tendency to destroy one per year. *Sigh*

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

My best, most heat resistant hot pads for pulling things from the oven are made out of my son's old purple sweat pants. They are 16 years old and still going.

I have a piece of rope my mother made years ago from pieces of my grandmother's old white bedspread and Another rope she made out of material that had once been a summer skimmer top back when I was a child-- 40+ years ago. Actually my Mom is an absolute champion recycler.

[mom-from-missouri]

When I run the clothes dryer, I save the lint and stuff it into TP tubes to reuse as fire starters when burning trash or lighting a fire in the fireplace.

Made a birdbath out of terra cotta planters I was not using.

Used individual yogurt containers to start our garden plants in

Darned socks and those that were beyod repair were cut into 1 1/2 inch wide strips to become ponytail holders

DH used some hog panels as rebar in a concrete pad he poured. They were too long, so he cut 24 inches off each one. I am now using them to plant my tomato plants beside to use as stakes. The will last much longer than the flimsey wire ones that cost $3 each.

Put some new soap slivers into my soap bag for the shower.

We needed a new mattress pad for our king sized bed. Instead of buying one, we took a rather worn comfortor and used it. It actually works better than the pad did.

DD4 took the last empty oatmeal container this morning to use to store her knitting needles and project in.

Yesterday DD3 took a pair of jeans that had the knees worn out and cut it off below the zipper. Then she took strips of scrap fabric and sewed them into wide ribbons, added gathers and sewed to the bottom of the jeans, making it into a skirt. Now, she plans on making hair scruntchies and a purse out of the remaining denim from the legs.

[creditcardfree]

I'm saving the torn screen from my sliding door to cover strawberry plants in my garden.

All toilet paper and paper towel tubes are saved for use by my daughter's pet mice...cheap tubes to play in and chew on.

[LuxLiving]

I mixed all the leftover paint from various projects to make enough to paint our basement floor at no additional cost - it actually turned out a very pretty terracotta color. I repurposed some deck sealer bought for 50cents a gallon can at the scratch n' dent store to seal the paint. Viola - 1000 sq. foot basement floor painted for $1.00 plus tax!!

[ScrimpAndSave]

I dont do enough reusing...I need to keep this in mind a lot more.

[disneysteve]

We just went grocery shopping. For the first time, we brought in several plastic grocery bags from a prior trip and one canvas tote bag. We didn't have enough bags to hold all that we bought, but we only needed to get 2 new bags. We're going to start keeping plastic bags and a few tote bags in our cars so that we can use them when we go shopping.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

A large cooler used for fishing got a crack in the outer side side of its lid. Now I use it to store my own mix of peat moss and perlite used for growing seedlings and filling flower pots.

Here's one of my favorites because it beats what is commercially available without spending more money than I think is reasonable. I make permanent plant tags out of cut open aluminum beer or soda cans. Just cut them to the size you like then write the name and whatever info you want with a dull pencil or a non-working ball point pen. Press really hard to emboss the words. The embossed words will last forever. This is how I keep straight all the different the heirloom tomato plants my gardening buddy always gives me. I fold over one edge of the tag and hang them on my tomato cages which are made from concrete reinforcing wire. Usually I staple them when they are folded over, but it isn't necessary if you make the fold generous enough.

Here's an odd one. Today I was going by a city park and saw that someone had saturated the corners with sleazy advertising signs made like the "open house" signs real estate agents use. It bothers me to see the park crapped up like that , so I stopped the car and pulled up the two nearest me. I took them apart to throw them in the nearby trash can, but then I decided I could use the metal frames which stick into the ground. I'm going to use them as a temporary barricade to keep our letter carriers from walking through my flower bed , which I have seen them do over and over this spring. Tomorrow when I go by the park, if the others are still there I'll trash the sings and pick up another couple frames to complete the barricade. I have used the same sort of sign frames as plant supports too.

[creditcardfree]

We cut pant legs off my daughter's dance recital jeans to make them into capri's. Today we turned the pantlegs into a purse for her.

[LuxLiving]

I once had a lot of leftover decorative tissue paper. I decopauged a cheap ugly particle board bookcase with it. Will have to get a picture up on my blog.

[creditcardfree]

Originally Posted by LuxLiving

I once had a lot of leftover decorative tissue paper. I decopauged a cheap ugly particle board bookcase with it. Will have to get a picture up on my blog.

Lux...I'd like to see that. Sounds very nice.

I received a package with a large styrofoam container in it. I will now put this in my car trunk to keep things cool this summer! It's much smaller than the cooler we own. Will be nice for water bottles or a taking a single dish to a party.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by creditcardfree

I received a package with a large styrofoam container in it. I will now put this in my car trunk to keep things cool this summer! It's much smaller than the cooler we own. Will be nice for water bottles or a taking a single dish to a party.

We get coolers like that at work regularly with medication and vaccine shipments. And they come with very nice reusable cold packs. I always take them home (the cold packs, not always theh coolers). We always have a bunch in the freezer ready to go when we need them and the rest I sell when we have our yard sale. I figure they cost me nothing, so even if I get a quarter each, I'm ahead of the game. I usually have a few dozen by the time we have a sale.

[creditcardfree]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

We get coolers like that at work regularly with medication and vaccine shipments. And they come with very nice reusable cold packs. I always take them home (the cold packs, not always theh coolers). We always have a bunch in the freezer ready to go when we need them and the rest I sell when we have our yard sale. I figure they cost me nothing, so even if I get a quarter each, I'm ahead of the game. I usually have a few dozen by the time we have a sale.

I actually received two both with cold packs. I am going to sell the other one at the garage sale I'm having in less than two weeks. The cold packs I'm keeping as they are pretty nice.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

You folks reminded me of another. Certain high end plant vendors ship their plants (such as orchids) with a crystal lattice heat generating pad, Geeze, sorry I don't know what they are called. Maybe just "hand warmers?" Anyway they are little pouches that have a crystallized matrix in them. You break the crystals and the heat of the crystal lattice is released, melting more of the crystal, thereby releasing even more heat.

The plant vendors use them to keep delicate plants from freezing in shipping. But they are re-usable. Just take the pad, pop it into a pot of boiling water. Let it cool. As it cools, the crystals will re-form and you can slip it into your pocket for when you have to walk the kids to school or catch a bus or whatever.

[ThriftoRama]

I once wrote an article about a man in Ohio who used nothing but recycled materials in his house. He had turned old concrete sidewalks into paving stones for his yard and was even building an outdoor sauna and hot tub from the peices. It looks fabulous. and it was all free. He'd just go by construction sites and ask if he could haul away the concrete chunks. It saved the city thousands in dumping fees and gave him free material. It was awesome. Of course, he put a lot of work into it, hauling and breaking up the slabs into usable pieces...

His roof was also made of recycled pop cans.

Just thought this might inspire you as much as it inspired me!

[pjmama]

Any time I get a plastic bottle of tea/juice/pop, I keep the container or recycle it. I've been using the same one for weeks to put tea I've brewed in and refrigerate. That way I dont have to buy more.

I also keep my cottage cheese/hummus containers to use as tupperware.

I sometimes cut up old socks to use as cleaning rags.

I also rinse/clean out ziploc bags and reuse them so I dont have to buy more.